Chapa locked in her nomination just before midnight with 50.84% of the vote, per unofficial results from Bexar County.
SAN ANTONIO — In addition to important statewide races, Bexar County voters on Tuesday decided the Democratic nominee for district attorney—the county’s chief prosecutor that oversees about 50,000 criminal cases a year.
It ended up being a remarkably close contest, with former Fourth Court of Appeals Judge Luz Elena Chapa collecting 50.84% of the vote to veteran prosecutor Jane Davis’ 49.16% The two were separated by fewer than 1,000 ballots out of more than 55,000 that were case in the race.
Luz Elena Chapa won 23.8% of the vote in the March primary and Jane Davis finished second with 18.2%. Voters had a much clearer option in Tuesday’s Democratic runoff after a packed field of eight candidates was whittled down to two.
The early vote gave Davis the initial edge, but only a slight one, of 51.1% before Chapa rebounded around 10:15 p.m. and kept the narrow lead.
“I’m very proud to be the choice for Bexar County Democrats again,” Chapa said after her victory was assured late Tuesday. “It was a close race, but every vote has been counted and we have won. I look forward to carrying the Democratic Party banner in November and being Bexar County’s next district attorney.”
Chapa will go on to face Republican Ashley Foster, who ran unopposed in her primary contest, in November. The winner will become just the second woman to lead the Bexar County DA’s Office after Susan Reed.
Speaking at her election watch party Tuesday night, Chapa said the message she heard from the community is that residents want change at the DA’s office.
“They realize the office is very broken,” she said. “They’re very in tune with what’s been going on for the last few years.”
Davis and Chapa brought vastly different perspectives to their respective bids to succeed Joe Gonzales, who will retire later this year after serving as Bexar County DA since 2019. The winner will go on to face Ashely Foster in November; Foster, an experience assistant DA herself, ran unopposed in the March Republican Primary.
Chapa has never tried a criminal case but most recently served as a Fourth Court of Appeals judge for over a decade, a role that saw her issuing opinions on hundreds of criminal cases. Before that, she practiced civil litigation and also represented families going through major injuries.
“A lot of those cases are very complex,” she previously told KENS 5. “You really have to focus in on details, you have to focus on evidence, building strong cases to set your best foot forward.”
When she was first took up the gavel in 2012, Chapa says, she was the youngest appellate judge in the Texas.
Davis has been a prosecutor for four decades, having worked in nearly every section of the DA’s office. She has also served as an assistant district attorney for seven different DAs. She had touted her experience trying over 400 jury trials and her vast know-how of the district attorney’s office’s inner machinery—and she tried to underscore the importance of the next DA being someone who has seen how a DA’s office operates on the inside.
Track live primary runoff results here.